Rip Van Winkle ; The legend of Sleepy Hollow, and other stories

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Publishers of the past hundred years have made... illustrated editions of Rip Van Winkle, or of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow only; we the directors of The Heritage Club now send to the members of this Club an unusual book, a book in which The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. is completely printed and illustrated. ...Gordon Ross some years ago illustrated Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities for The Limited Editions Club, and we had the[se] illustrations in our mind's eye, when we approached him to beg him to illustrate The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. He has made a series of illustrations in water-color, and a series of line drawings to be placed at the beginnings of the various stories and essays. The line drawings are simple and full of fun. The watercolors are delighting and something to chuckle over. They look like old English sporting prints, with the result that they capture the ﬂavor of Washington Irving's own time, of Washington Irving's own writing.... They are all lovely drawings, and we think you will ﬁnd them gently humorous and delighting at the same time. The quiet humor of Washington Irving's text, the quiet humor of Gordon Ross' drawings, set the tone of this edition. The Heritage edition of Rip Van Winkle and Other Stories is a small, thick, solid and mellow book. The type used is Scotch.... Some types are elegant, ﬂossy; Scotch is the antithesis: it is rugged and robust. Yet, in its smaller sizes, it acquires a surprising daintiness. Used in this edition of Rip Van Winkle and Other Stories, it is in the eleven-point size; and we think the resulting page is dainty, mellow, easy to read. The size of the page is 5⅜ x 8⅛ inches, and there are 432 pages. These pages are printed upon a paper specified to be mellow. The result is a small and friendly, solid and pleasantly homely book. We are sometimes far more proud of our pleasantly homely books than we are of our voluptuously beautiful ones...